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SmartBiz

Lender or loan platform

PPP
Type
Company or group
Role
Lender or loan platform
Programs
PPP
Updated
  • Type: Online SBA-loan marketplace and bank-enabling technology platform; later an SBA lender under the SmartBiz Bank identity.
  • Legal entities: SmartBiz Loans (San Francisco); presented as SmartBiz Bank on the company's own site; BillFloat, Inc. dba SmartBiz Loans in the company's 2021 site footer; Better Finance, Inc. d/b/a SmartBiz Loans in a 2017 bank employment agreement filed with the SEC.
  • Founded: San Francisco; the company began in online consumer lending and pivoted to a bank-centric SBA 7(a) marketplace by the mid-2010s (Banking Exchange interview with its CEO).
  • HQ: San Francisco.
  • CEO: Evan Singer — CEO through the pandemic and, per the company's board/management page (our copy is cited in his profile), CEO of SmartBiz Bank and Chair of the Board.
  • Role in PPP: Marketplace and software layer routing PPP applications to partner banks, including as a named partner in Womply's 2021 Fast Lane channel. Not a lender of record in SBA data.

In the archive

Role in pandemic relief

  • Reader shorthand: an application platform: more than a lead page, less than a lender of record.
  • What SmartBiz did for borrowers: turned complex SBA credit into a faster digital workflow: intake, packaging, underwriting automation, and routing to partner banks.
  • What SmartBiz sold to other companies: licensed origination software to its partner banks to automate underwriting for referred loans.
  • Where responsibility sat: partner banks approved, funded, and held the PPP loans; Womply's 2021 Fast Lane page listed SmartBiz (like Lendio) among its partners; the lender-vs-platform classification is from the Womply profile's fuller partner table. Under Treasury's March 31, 2020 lender information sheet, an agent that helped prepare a PPP application was paid by the lender out of the lender's fee, could collect nothing from the applicant, and could take at most 1 percent on loans up to $350,000.

Before the pandemic (mid-2010s–early 2020)

SmartBiz pivoted from online consumer lending into an SBA 7(a) marketplace that licensed origination software to partner banks and matched small-business customers to them (Banking Exchange interview). In February 2018 the company said it had surpassed JPMorgan Chase as the number-one provider of SBA 7(a) loans under $350,000 facilitated through its platform (Alliance of Chief Executives item).

During the pandemic (March 2020 – mid 2021)

SmartBiz Loans said that during the Paycheck Protection Program's earlier funding rounds it "helped process $2 billion in PPP loans for the banks in its network, helping more than 10,000 small businesses" (SmartBiz Loans, "Paycheck Protection Loan Resources for Small Business Owners," January 2021). It lent none of it.

How the money moved

Under Treasury's PPP lender information sheet of March 31, 2020, the bank that made a PPP loan earned a processing fee of 5 percent on loans up to $350,000. An agent that helped prepare the application was paid by that bank ("Agent fees will be paid out of lender fees"), could collect nothing from the applicant, and could take at most 1 percent on loans up to $350,000. SmartBiz described its part as referral: eligible applications "will be referred for review by lending institutions in the SmartBiz bank network." The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's May 2020 fintech-PPP guide listed SmartBiz among companies "assisting with the preparation of PPP applications and then sending those applications to partner banks that are SBA-approved."

Womply's March 2021 PPP Fast Lane FAQ named SmartBiz Loans among its partners, alongside Cross River, Harvest Small Business Finance, Fountainhead, Funding Circle and Lendio. Womply's May 2021 lender-guides page said: "SmartBiz is not a lender, but they partner with SBA-approved lenders to help businesses access PPP."

If its banks paid SmartBiz as an agent under the Treasury rule, $2 billion of loans would have paid it at most $20 million. SmartBiz has not disclosed what its banks paid it. SBA's loan-level PPP data names a lender on every loan. None of those lenders is SmartBiz, BillFloat, Inc. or Better Finance, Inc., the two corporate names given for SmartBiz Loans in its site footer and in a bank's SEC filing.

The numbers, as the company told them

On April 1, 2020, SmartBiz's homepage said the banks in its network "have funded over $1.5 billion in small business loans," under a banner that read "Sign up for the SBA Paycheck Protection Program loan due to COVID-19 pandemic." By July 24 the same page said they "have funded nearly $4.0 billion in SBA 7(a), PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) and bank term loans," for over 20,000 businesses. On the company's own figures, that is about $2.5 billion added in under four months. In 2016, Evan Singer told Banking Exchange: SmartBiz CEO Evan Singer Talks About Why and How His Fintech Firm Works With Banks in the SBA 7(a) Program, "SmartBiz arranged $225 million in originations."

Spread over more than 10,000 businesses, $2 billion averages at most $200,000 each. A September 2021 SmartBiz blog post cited SBA totals of 11,823,594 PPP loans for $799,832,866,520, an average of about $67,600. By February 2022 the company said it had "connected borrowers with more than $9 billion in PPP, SBA 7(a), and bank term loans," without a PPP split (Business Wire, February 22, 2022). It said over 230,000 entrepreneurs had used SmartBiz.

From PPP sign-ups to forgiveness

By May 13, 2020, the homepage banner read "Sign up for COVID-19 PPP Loan Forgiveness and SBA 7(a) Updates." On July 7 SmartBiz said it had introduced "an automated PPP Loan Forgiveness Solution to help a bank's internal team efficiently manage PPP loan forgiveness." It also published a survey of 500 small businesses, half of them SmartBiz customers funded with a PPP loan by a bank in its network (Business Wire, July 7, 2020). Singer said the survey showed "a tidal wave of demand coming from small business owners for continued access to low-cost capital." On September 22 a company blog post titled "SmartBiz CEO Talks National Small Business Week" called for "a PPP second draw and simplified PPP forgiveness process." In March 2021 the homepage offered "a first or second Paycheck Protection Loan (PPP)"; by June it said the program "ended May 31, 2021."

Staff and customers

On March 17, 2020, SmartBiz said it was "an internet company so we're open for business as usual," that its teams in San Francisco and Austin were equipped "to work remotely from home," and that there had been "no change to the SmartBiz Loans application process." We found no notice under SmartBiz, BillFloat or Better Finance in California's WARN layoff reports for the years to June 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. In 2022 SmartBiz hired a chief marketing officer, and its chief people officer spoke of "a remote, flexible work environment as we scale the company."

For borrowers with SBA loans already on the books, the CARES Act authorized the SBA to pay six months of principal, interest and fees on 7(a) loans, the kind SmartBiz's banks made, as a March 2021 SmartBiz blog post explained. SmartBiz also gave grants of its own. In August 2020 it announced $1,000 grants to four minority-owned businesses in San Francisco and Austin. In January 2022 it said it had given five $5,000 grants, $25,000 in all, in the previous quarter.

The filed record

The SEC's EDGAR system lists one filing by Billfloat, Inc. of San Francisco, a Form D from July 2010, and nothing for the pandemic years. BayFirst Financial Corp.'s 2021 registration statement includes a 2017 employment agreement with the chief executive of its bank, First Home Bank. It bars him, during his employment and for 18 months after, from attempting to "solicit or divert referrals of SBA 7(a) loans from Better Finance, Inc. d/b/a SmartBiz Loans" to a competing business. BayFirst's 2022 proxy statement repeats the restriction.

After the pandemic (mid 2021 – present)

No enforcement action or PPP-fraud finding against SmartBiz has been located; it does not appear in the House Select Subcommittee's fintech-PPP report. The company later presented itself as SmartBiz Bank (company site), with Evan Singer as CEO and Board Chair (board release, cited in his profile). In March 2025 SmartBiz acquired United Community Bancshares, Inc. and its subsidiary Centrust Bank, N.A. (SmartBiz Bank release, April 22, 2025). The holding company, now named SmartBiz Bancshares, Inc. in SEC records, filed a Form D on May 2, 2025 listing Evan Singer as an executive officer and director and reporting a $2,725,000 offering, of which $490,000 had been sold.

Sources

In this archive

External references

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